Somewhere between lament and analysis, Michel Warschawski’s short report on the state of Israeli politics is a must read for anyone trying to get a handle on why peace in the Middle East is so elusive.

Ostensibly founded as a refuge for European Jews, Israel was imposed as a “state of the Jewish people” on a land already populated, mostly with Muslim Arabs. Having fully absorbed the colonial chauvinism of their time, as manifested in the Nakba when 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and land, the early Zionists also practiced a relatively high degree of democracy and tolerance within their own society. According to the author, a longtime Israeli dissident, even that paltry virtue is spent.

For American Jews raised on the notion that Israel is their last, best hope, Toward An Open Tomb is a necessary reality check on how fascism isn’t just something that happens to other people.